


Built By Killers

by bravelikealady



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Episode Fix-it, Episode: s08e03 The Long Night, F/M, Fix-It, Multi POV, The Long Night, Winterfell, i wish the hound were here, more characters to be added most like, sansan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-10 03:05:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravelikealady/pseuds/bravelikealady
Summary: A necessary addendum to Game of Thrones season 8, episode 3 "The Long Night".After Sandor Clegane ushers Arya Stark to relative safety, she bolts once again. Any kindness he has ever done has led him to Winterfell. And for what? Melisandre tells him that his little bird, the red wolf is just below. A dog may as well die for a wolf.In the crypts, Sansa Stark recalls the last time she waited for a battle. She remembers the Hound's offer to keep her safe, and small kindnesses he'd shown before. She wonders how it will feel to die without ever seeing him again."She thought of Sandor Clegane, of knowing he was alive, of knowing he was here, here, at home. And never speaking to him. She thought of Sandor Clegane, in this great winter, with all that fire.Above her, chaos reigned. The sounds of the dead and the living were drawing close to the crypts. The energy in the crypts was changing and all within felt it, even the babes.I should have sang for him, she thought."





	1. Home

 

_ “Tell that to her,” _ Beric had shouted.

 

He had followed her, through death, through fire. He had followed Arya through all things that had clawed at him, torn him to pieces, since he was a boy.

 

And a woman of fire had sent the little bitch running again. He was lame now, his leg more a ghost than a piece of him. He had held Arya from danger all he could, years ago, and here in the long night. 

 

There was nothing he could do for her now.

 

But every good deed he had ever done, or tried to do, had been linked to Winterfell in some way. 

 

“Your bird.”

 

It is not a question, but a summons.

 

“What are you on about? Speak plainly, we’re all about to die.”

 

“The red wolf is here, Sandor Clegane.”

 

He had forgotten Melisandre’s presence for a moment, lost in his own thoughts, the thrum of his own heart, the sweat and blood and fear of battle. A life he once thought he must leave.

 

“Fuck off,” he tells her, doing all he can to mute the shake in his voice. 

 

Sandor Clegane had looked on the last sunset dropping behind the red leaves of the weirwoods and accepted that he would die here. A dog come to rot into the earth of the wolves. 

 

“There is still time to go to her. The dead have found her already-”

 

“Your precious fires show you that? Lot of good they’ve done. Those beasts laid down on your fire and walked across one another. Stepped forward like they were home” 

 

“I do not see this in my fires. I see this in  _ you _ . Go to her. You could be cleansed. You could be healed. But she is the only way. You know this.”

 

“The last time I went to her-”

 

“She was a girl then. And you, a dog.”

 

“Aye, it’s the very same now.”

 

“The same. And yet not at all. Fire is cleansing.”

 

He held the Red Woman’s gaze for only a moment. 

 

“Fuck.” 

 

He picks up his weapon. Melisandre places her hands around it.

 

“I don’t… if you set this thing alight, I’m useless. I’m as good as dead.”

 

“We are all as good as dead. Accept the fire. You will find your purpose.”

 

Hands shaking, he closes his eyes, feels the heat before he sees it the flame.

 

\----

Sansa is standing before the statue of her father, finding it concerningly difficult to recall his true face. His eyes she remembers, his voice, his hands. But the details of his true and living face are starting to leave her. If she concentrates too hard on it, the face Joffrey made her see, her father’s head, dead, left out to rot, as a warning, tries to come to her. 

 

“He cannot make me see,” she whispers to herself, almost a prayer.

 

“My lady,” Tyrion approaches her. “May I?”

 

“Of course.”

 

He stands by her side and joins her at looking on the stone visage of the late Eddard Stark.

 

“Your father was a good man. A very good man. I mean that. Have I ever told you-”

 

“You don’t have to speak, Tyrion.”

 

“Yes. Yes, good.”

 

The silence is not uncomfortable for her. She hopes it is not for him. Bid here by her warrior sister, and before that urged to begin the night here by her brother Jon, it was nice to be in the company of someone who was, at least in this way, equal to her.

 

This isn’t a first battle for either of them. When she was in Maegor’s holdfast awaiting the Battle of Blackwater, he was out there, in the wild of night. It is where Tyrion got the scar on his face. 

 

It is where Sansa finally accepted that her life would be spent looking on killers.

 

“Do you remember that day in the throne room?”

 

“The dreadful one?”

 

“Oh, most dreadful.”

 

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Tyrion responds. “There were many days in that throne room, regrettably.”

 

“You had come in as Ser Meryn was… tearing my dress apart. Joffrey’s orders,” Sansa rolled her eyes, thankful Tyrion would take the cue to keep things light.

 

“Ah, yes. A truly romantic king and his chivalrous knights.”

 

“Yes… when you asked for someone to give me something, to… to cover me up. It was the Hound who stepped forward. He gave me his cloak.”

 

“Did he?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I don’t know if that is a worse or better circumstance than when I gave you a cloak,” Tyrion drank.

 

“Hm.”

 

Sansa wondered if she would be telling Tyrion any of this if she thought they might survive. 

 

“I kept his cloak… I don’t know why.  At the bottom of my trunk, the one I’d brought from Winterfell,” she smiled, remembering the smell of that old oak trunk, remembering the weight of that cloak as she slept aided by the milk of the poppy that night. “It’s still in there, whatever became of it.”

 

“Sansa, forgive me, why are you thinking about that now?”

 

“Remembering is all we can do down here. Reviewing our mistakes, reliving our victories, studying. So that if-  _ when _ \- we survive this, we will know what to do.”

 

“Or what not to do. I imagine I have more to add to that side of it than you.”

 

“You might be surprised,” she gave a smile and took his leather flagon, stole a healthy gulp. “Brienne saw my sister with the Hound. I know for a time he was with her. Bringing her home, I think.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“The night of Blackwater, he came to me. I had run into my room, locked the door, as if that would keep me safe... and there he was.”

 

“Did he-”

 

“No… no, he didn’t hurt me,” Sansa looked away from Tyrion’s gaze, folded her hands in her lap to maintain her composure. “He offered to take me home. Told me he would keep me safe. But I was so sure that Stannis would win.”

 

“Apologies.”

 

She took a deep breath, remembered she was the Lady of Winterfell, and that Tyrion of all people would not judge her harshly.

 

“I wonder at times, what it might have been like. To go with him. If he would have kept me safe. If he could have smuggled me home, smuggled me anywhere.”

 

“Whenever the man was not heeled to my sister or to Joffrey, he was erratic at best.”

 

“Erratic, yes. But… he was not unkind to me. Not then… or ever, not in any real way.”

 

“Perhaps there will be time to speak to him.”

 

“There is talk that he lives but Brienne may have killed him. She spoke to me about him once.”

 

“Sansa, no. The Hound is alive. Sandor Clegane is here.”

 

“In the north?”

 

“In Winterfell.”

 

“Oh,” Sansa felt her heart drop into her stomach. 

 

_ The gods have been kind to let me see my family again- Jon, Bran, Arya- to hold onto them again. I should be grateful. _

 

Tyrion’s hand offering her wine shook her from her thoughts somewhat. She took a sip.

 

She thought of Sandor Clegane, of knowing he was alive, of knowing he was here, _ here, at _ **_home_ ** . And never speaking to him. She thought of Sandor Clegane, in this great winter, with all that fire.

 

Above her, chaos reigned. The sounds of the dead and the living were drawing close to the crypts. The energy in the crypts was changing and all within felt it, even the babes.

 

_ I should have sang for him _ , she thought. 

 

And then,  _ I can sing for him now _ .  _ For everyone _ .

 

Sansa stood, just as she had done before rushing to her room during Blackwater, “We must be brave. All of us. Even as the dead draw closer.”

 

Silence fell around her. She looked to Tyrion to see if what she was doing was even remotely sane. 

 

“Here, here,” he lifted his wine, gave her an encouraging nod. 

 

“The Old Gods watch over us now. As do my brothers, my sister, and so many brave men and women who have come to join our cause. To save Westeros. To save humanity. The night is long, the night is dark, but courage… courage can do so much. Courage and song. I know that for me those have made all the difference.”

 

All eyes were on Sansa now, in the space of a strange new calm. Some women had gone back to gently rocking their babies. A small child began to dry his eyes. Gilly, someone Jon was fond of, smiled kindly at her.

 

“There are no hymns for the Godswoods, but I know one for the Seven. The Seven and the Old Gods have shared Winterfell since my mother married my father. I have found comfort in both.”

 

There was beating on the door now, cries of  _ help us, open the door, please, please _ . Sansa closed her eyes. She steeled herself.

 

Her father was here with her. 

 

_ I can be brave _ .

 

She began to sing.

 

_ Gentle Mother, font of mercy, _

_ Save our sons from war, we pray. _

_ Stay the swords and stay the arrows, _

_ Let them know a better day _ _. _


	2. Wolfsong

**_Flame_ ** _. Slash.  _ **_Flame_ ** _. Slash. _

 

All he knew was fear.

 

Fear so strong his eyes glittered with every surge of the torch.. At the end of each wave of wights he would wonder if it was worth it, having to rely upon fire, to go on. The memory of his brother, of a life wasted, wrapped fear around his heart, thrumming through his chest to a greater extent that the flame itself.  He felt exposed. A child again. Hopeless and helpless.  _ Why go on? What’s the fucking point? _

He tried to shrink himself, as stupid as that was for a man of his size, to work his way behind a stumbling few, not yet a hoard. One headless. All with those bloody blue eyes.  _ Why go on? _ He cut one down.  _ Why go on? _ Another.

 

_ Little bird… _

 

Melisandre had called her a red wolf.  _ Aye, that’s more like. _ There was always that within her… he may have taken part in putting it out but he wanted-  _ needed _ \- her to know the rules. It was the only way he saw to help her.

 

It wasn’t enough. It haunted him now. It drove him to drink in ways he never had then. Changed who he was. The name Stark had meant near nothing to him before this war. Sansa Stark had changed that. He thinks it is why he took Arya to begin… if he was to belong anywhere, let it be with Starks. Or else let him die doing something for that house, for those girls. The only thing he had ever seen of honor. Naive, blind, and reckless honor.

 

But he had gone on living. Over and over.

 

Sandor found Winterfell dizzying, even in stretches of time where he was not confined on all sides by the ravenous dead. The fear of the flame before him flickered in contrast to the grey, cold disorientation of the Winterfell wall. The last time he had spent any considerable time in a castle was the Red Keep. Red, warm, serpentine, unforgiving. He did not miss the confines of that place, the peril, the limited existence, the blunt force of survival, a sword at his throat, but it was… home. In some ways. As much of a home he had ever had.

 

He stopped, not for the sound of the dead, but for the howling of a wolf.

 

There were two turns he could take down a long hall, he was not sure which led to the crypt. But he followed the howling.

 

_ No need for a direwolf to deal with the likes of me. But I’d rather be eaten by something alive. _

 

Like a machine, he gutted or else beheaded the dead in his path, even when he no longer heard wolfsong.

 

But then he heard another voice, a voice he had heard before, stronger now. Warmer. Singing.

 

_ Soothe the wrath and tame the fury, _

_ Teach us all a kinder way. _

 

He ran to the sound, quiet step and cautious choice be damned.

 


End file.
